TY - JOUR

AB - Subject area Strategic Marketing, Marketing Management, Services

Marketing.Study level/applicability MBA and Executive MBA.Case overview The case
talks about the inception and growth of OYO Rooms, a company that originally
started as ORAVEL Stays Ltd. in 2012, as a platform for booking budget and premium
accommodations, but graduated to become OYO Rooms, an online aggregator of hotels,
with a unique business model of “managing the partial inventory of rooms” in hotels
and offering a proposition of affordable, consistent, quality experience to
business, leisure and pilgrim travellers. The company received rounds of funding
from Greenoaks Capital, Lightspeed Ventures, Sequoia Capital and DSG Consumer
Partners. Moreover, unlike its competitors, OYO adapted itself to the fast-changing
consumer preference and grew at an enviable pace and by 2016, was present across
190 cities through a network of 6,500 hotels. However, OYO Rooms had to face a
multitude of challenges both from the consumer and hotel owners’ ends, primarily
service quality concerns from the customers and majorly concerns out of payment
irregularities or non-abidance to written contracts from the hoteliers’ end. The
dissatisfaction levels increased to an extent that experts started raising
questions on the viability of the business. OYO was growing at an aggressive rate
but breakeven point was yet to be achieved. Moreover, growing dissatisfaction and
switching amongst its customers as well as hoteliers threatened the very existence
of the model. The case allows the students to critically analyse the strategies of
OYO for deliberation on whether the business model was sustainable in the long run.
It also encourages the students to deliberate on the possible growth strategies for
OYO as also on the service recovery strategies for OYO.Expected learning outcomes
The case has been positioned around the following modules: industry analysis; value
of a two-sided business model to both parties; sustainability of a unique business
model, against the challenges that it faces; applying the VRIO framework (resource-
based view); complaint handling and service recovery strategies; applying the
Ansoff’s grid for possible growth options.Supplementary materials Teaching notes
are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details
or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.Subject code CSS 11:
Strategy.
VL - 7
IS - 3
SN - 2045-0621
DO - 10.1108/EEMCS-01-2017-0015
UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-01-2017-0015
A1 - Sharma Tripti Ghosh
A2 - Jain Rohit
A3 - Kapoor Sahil
A4 - Gaur Vijeyta
A4 - Roy Abhishek
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017/01/01
TI - OYO Rooms: providing affordable hotel stays
T2 - Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies
PB - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP - 1
EP - 26
Y2 - 2019/09/16
ER -